Only in the Case
by claraowl
Summary: In which Nora finds a letter Ren wrote to her and confronts him about it. Fluff and some sadness; mentions of death but no death within the story. Spoilers for the end of season 3! Renora; cover art by my sempai.
**Hello, lovelies! Yes, I should be working on my** _ **Skip Beat**_ **fic, but renora demanded to be written. I do not own anything you recognize! :)**

"Ren, what's this?" Nora inquired, looking up at him from her place on the floor and examining an envelope she'd found in one of his books. The pair of them were packing up what remained of their possessions; Jaune was talking over something with Yatsuhashi - plans for departure, maybe - as he had already packed up Pyrrha's possessions and taken only the barest necessities of his own. "It's addressed to me, from you."

"Nora, wait -"

"You wrote me a letter?" She flipped the envelope over to examine the writing on the opposite side.

"Nora, wait, that's in case-"

Her voice hit a pitch usually associated with dolphin impressions. " _Open only in the case of the death of Lie Ren_?"

"Purely hypothetical!" He yelped, vaulting over a bed towards her.

"Ren, I'm reading this now."

"No! Nora -" He was at her side now, reaching towards it, trying to prevent her from reaching it.

"Ren, I am reading this now. You cannot stop me, no matter how much you ninja. I don't… I don't want to even think of a situation where I would have to follow the instructions on the envelope. Please…." Her eyes met his, begging him; how could he resist, even for the sake of the letter?

"I… fine. I'm going to - going to finish packing. Yeah. That." _It's now or never, I guess._ Behind him, the bedsprings creaked as Nora crawled onto the mattress to read more comfortably; the ripping of the envelope and the crinkling of the paper as Nora opened it fell on Ren's ears. He busied himself with packing; he didn't think that he could bear to watch her face when she read what he had written.

 _Dear Nora,_

 _You know better than anyone that I've never been particularly good with words, so please be patient with me if you read this._

 _If you're reading this, then that means that I'm already gone, and you found this while sorting through my things. If the person reading this is anyone other than Nora Valkyrie, then please stop here and give this to her. These words are meant for her eyes, and hers alone._

 _Nora, this letter is all the things I'll never been able to say to you. I hope I can say them well._

 _First, I want to thank you. Thank you for staying with me, for sticking with me through all those long years, and especially for staying after the first rough times passed. Thank you for coming up to me that first day and jabbering about the dragon-shaped cloud in the sky, for dragging me headlong into your world. Thank you for all the years and every single happy memory going forward from age five. Thank you for the play on sunny days and the comfort on stormy nights. Thank you for early mornings of breaking into my sleep so we could watch the sunrise together, for late nights of whispered conversations. Thank you for speaking for me; thank you for listening. Thank you for saving me, so many times, for making me believe that life is worth living. Thank you for being my everything._

 _Nora, I'm so sorry that I had to leave you. I didn't want to. I want to stay with you forever; I never wanted any of these disasters to happen. But please, Nora… keep moving forward, with or without me. You were the best thing in my life; I don't want to be the reason that you give up on yours. Please, for my sake if not your own, take care of yourself, or at least let the others take care of you. Please don't do what I would if the situations were reversed; please don't give it all up. There's so much left out there for you, Nora. Live it. We'll meet again, I know we will. You've been my family for too long for anything else to happen. Please keep going, Nora. For me, if not for yourself._

 _Nora… there's just one last thing I need to tell you. This is the secret I've kept from you the longest, or done my best to do so. I didn't tell you because I thought we had years left together, that there'd be time… I didn't want to ruin anything we had already, didn't want to risk losing you. You're my everything, Nora. I couldn't risk it. I figured that one day I'd be able to tell you._

 _But if you're reading this, then it means that we didn't have time. So I have to tell you this way, and for that I am sorry. I didn't want it to be like this; I wanted to tell you in person, not in long-dried ink, but I don't have a choice._

 _Nora, I love you._

 _I love you._

 _I do._

 _I think I always have, even if it's been in different ways. Originally it was just as friends, then as family - and neither of those have diminished any. I still love you in both of those ways. There's just another layer now, in the together-together sense. I've never been able to imagine my life without you; I've never wanted to, have never tried. I need you, Nora, and wish we could've had more time. I just… I love everything about you. Your spark, your smiles. The way your brow furrows just a bit when you're reading something you find interesting. Your wit and your laugh. The way you move when you're fighting, the brilliance in your eyes when you're excited. Your appreciation of each and every sunrise you'd wake me to watch. Your hugs and embraces, your random bursts of affection. Your klutziness off the battlefield and your love of sugary things. Your… well, everything. I think I already said this, but you are my everything, Nora. You've always been it for me, even when I didn't really know what that meant._

 _I love you, lightning bug. Please keep going for me._

 _Eternally,_

 _Ren_

 _P. S. If my bag is still intact, look in that one pocket I asked you to stay away from, the one inside the others. I couldn't afford to buy one, so I made one instead - I'd hoped to put it on your finger myself. I will not ask that you wear it, just that you keep it to remember me by once the war's over. I love you, and I'll see about meeting you in your dreams. I'll see you again, love. I promise._

The crinkle of folding paper reached Ren's ears; he forced himself to remain still, to not run - away from her or towards her, he was unsure. Not until he heard an awful sound did he force himself to turn, to look at Nora. Tears rolled down her face as she clutched the letter to her chest with little hiccuping sobs.

"Nora, I…" His feet were made of lead; they dragged across the floor without his consciousness of their movement. "I'm sor-"

The end of a whisper stopped his half-formed apology. "...to me?"

"What?"

"You were planning to explain all of this… if you _died_ … in a _letter_ … to me?" Nora's voice shook, but not as much as her hands; the letter slipped between them and landed with a _fwup_ on the carpet. "In a _letter_?"

"I just - with everything with Pyrrha - if I never got a chance, I just wanted to make sure -"

"Then why not tell me _now_ , when we're both safe for these last few moments? Why…?" She still hadn't met his eyes; hers were too full of tears. "Why wait until after you'd -" The words got stuck in her throat; she could not force them out, nor did she want to admit their entirely too plausible possibility.

"I just… I don't plan to die, Nora. It's just in case… in case I was never able to tell you." He was kneeling at her feet, now, looking up into her tear-soaked face. "I didn't want to leave you never knowing how much I," he paused, swallowed, and then met her eyes to say, "how much I love you. Please don't be mad at me, Nora… I just didn't want to risk it. You're my everything; I'm at a loss without you. I couldn't… couldn't risk you not wanting to be near me anymore once you knew."

A laugh slipped through the tears. "As if that could ever be possible."

"I… logically I know, I just…" He couldn't quite meet her eyes now that hers were clearing; he could feel a familiar sting behind his own. His forehead thumped forward, resting on her thigh; one of her hands found his hair.

"I was scared, too," she whispered, rubbing the pink strip between her fingers. "I know I don't have any right to be angry with you for putting off telling me, because… well, it's not like I had any big plan for telling you, did I?"

"Nora?" He tilted his head so that he could see her face.

"You know how I've been saying 'boop' more and more for a while now?" He nodded mutely, awaiting her forthcoming explanation. "Well… that's just what happened to come into my mind when I couldn't think of anything to say, when all that was in my mind was thoughts of _you_ \- things that I couldn't say because I didn't want to risk your rejection."

He shifted his weight backwards, pulling his head off of her thigh so he could face her properly, feeling a bit guilty for how much hope he felt welling within him.

"You're my everything, too, Ren. You have been for a while - I don't know when I started falling in love with you. I probably always have been, at least a little. So I - I know I shouldn't be so happy, especially with everything going on right now, but hearing you say it -" She fell silent; he had moved closer, within inches of her face; his hand found her cheek.

"May I?"

She nodded, placing her hand over his as she let her eyes close.

And for that moment, they were safe - they were _home._

But then, of course, the moment ended; the door, due to wind pressure, slammed shut, startling them out of their last few golden seconds of illusion. Their eyes met, faces still so close together, and laughter bubbled up out of both of their throats despite all that had happened, and all that they would have to face. Nora tilted her head, knocking her forehead against Ren's, and then leaned around him to fetch the letter off of the floor.

"Can I keep this?"

He nodded, not quite sure if his vocal chords would cooperate just yet, and pretended not to watch when Nora tucked the letter into one of the pockets she had on the inside of her shirt. A thought occurred to him - not that thousands were not whirling through his mind at the moment - and he stood up, silencing her small noise of protest with a hand motion. While he rummaged in his bag for whatever had just occurred to him, Nora scrubbed at her cheeks to dry them. Her hand slipped a bit, causing the paper to crinkle just over her heart. A soft smile touched her lips; the padding sound of Ren's footsteps reached her ears, and she looked up to find him wearing an odd expression.

"Nora, there's something else I'd like you to keep."

He held out a small bag, one of deep green imitation velvet with a drawstring. It had a pink lightning bolt painted on it in now-flaking fuchsia paint; she took it from him, discovering that it was very light. "Is this…?" He nodded.

"I was hoping you'd wear it, actually." He caught the expression in her eyes and flushed. "I-I mean, if you want to - it doesn't have to be like _that_ if you're not ready, I mean -"

Nora pushed a finger against his lips, silencing him. "And people say _I_ babble." She giggled. "Of course I'll wear it, Renny. Like _that_ , too." Saying this, she pulled the small wooden ring out of the bag; it bore intricate carvings and had been reinforced with several layers of lacquer. "I just hope I don't lose it."

"You could put it on a chain, like a necklace." As he said this, he sat down next to her and put an arm around her waist, pulling her to him as he had done so many times before, but this time - this time he could allow himself to enjoy it fully. "Or if you lose it, I'll make you a new one. Or buy you a proper one, once this is all over."

"I'm going to hold you to that last one," she replied, leaning up against him as she slipped the ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand.

"Oh, really?" He entwined their fingers, enjoying the rub of the ring against the sides of his fingers.

"Yeah, because it means that we'll both survive. Promise me?" Her face tilted up to view his, questioning; his came down to meet it.

"I promise that I'll do everything within my power to get us out of this alive."

"Me, too." She pressed a kiss to his jaw before shifting so that her head could rest in the crook of his neck. "I'm glad that I found the letter now."

He nodded, tugging her a little closer. They stayed like that for a few minutes before realizing that they ought to finish packing, which they did with minimal irritation. Once they had finished, Ren walked to the door, paused, and turned to observe Nora standing in the middle of the room, taking her final look around. She took a deep breath before spinning to face him. "Ready."

He offered a hand. "Together?"

She took it. " _Together-_ together."

 **That's a wrap!**

 **For those of you who want to see more bullet-point type of renora stuff, I'm on tumblr under the same penname. Just search "renora" in my tags and it'll come up with a bunch of stuff.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this! Please drop me a review to let me know how you liked it! :D**


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